Hi Free Software Folks, Last night saw our largest attendance yet! Ben Finney told us how to get involved in Debian, one of the most mature and respected GNU/Linux projects. Alex and Les brought along snacks and drinks and afterwards a number of us headed around the corner for tasty Korean/Japanese food and more free software chatter. We also agreed to explicitly change the group's name to Free Software Melbourne (from Melbourne Free Software Interest Group). It's been a great year for the group. Thanks again to Alex giving us the opportunity to have a private and comfortable meeting space at VPAC. This has allowed us to grow significantly and see some very interesting free software discussion along the way. I hope that next year we can continue to complement the community's existing technical user groups with our own non-technical, free software-focused, informal social gatherings. Next gathering will be in February, due to holidays and conferences including the linux.conf.au free software conference in Ballarat. Dates for 2012 TBA. A few things we're considering for next year: - a introductory free software participation event such as a Debian bug-squashing party (not only for programming people) - a bigger role in Software Freedom Day 15 September - perhaps a local event to mark the FSF Libre Planet Conference 24-25 March We're looking forward to seeing you again for more free software in 2012! Regards, Ben